HUD funding an expensive entitlement

Recently the Yorba Linda City Council voted to again approve the city's share of $3.1 billion in entitlement funding. Though not the lone voice, I ultimately was the only vote in opposition.

It is my responsibility to support the poor, not the city's, the state's or the federal government's responsibility. My vote against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant Program was not cast because I naively thought there was a chance of reversing this large entitlement program. Nor was the vote cast without careful consideration of the adverse consequences to us as a city financially and programmatically.

I voted the way I did because it was the right thing to do – and change begins with me.

Do I support the very poor (the principal purpose of the program)? Most definitely. I have taken my family on extended mission trips to Africa, Mexico and Indonesia. To him who has been given much, much is expected. The needs locally are just as compelling.

But herein lies the key; I took my family. I didn't leave it to big government to do my bidding; to do so would have shunned my responsibility and cost me the joy in giving. When government gets involved, expenses go up and accountability goes down.

Out of the $3.1 billion for this national program, local agencies are allowed to lop off 20 percent for administration expenses, that's a whopping $620 million that funds the local administrative machine. My research hasn't found out how much HUD keeps for its monitoring, but would anyone be surprised if HUD retains at least as much as they allow the local agencies? This would be another 20 percent.

The two problems are expense and accountability. With a 20 percent assumption, it takes approximately $3.9 billion of our tax dollars to create a $3.1 billion entitlement program to fund $2.5 billion of aid. That's a dollar of administration for every $1.78 of purported aid. And does the aid really support those with the most need? Or do some agencies artificially create need simply to keep their share of administration fees?

My city is blessed with honest administrators and caring citizens, more so perhaps than most places. We call ourselves, after all, the “Land of Gracious Living.” When “free” money is being doled out, however, one's constitution must be fortified to return the money, particularly when refusing only means someone perhaps less deserving will take the cash.

Entitlement Communities (that's actually what we're called in the HUD document),
like Yorba Linda, must qualify for and spend the allotted share every year. I'm told staff has to work hard to find people to give this money to. Recently, our distributions fell in to three categories. Last year part of the money went to fund home improvements, another part went to administer meals for 500 seniors (the grant didn't fund the food, just the wait staff and incidental support) and the final block funded a low-income owner of an investment retail building.

Were all three of these block funds given to classes of people who earn less than the average person in Orange County? Certainly. Yet most of them drive nice cars, many own homes and at least one owns investment real estate. So my challenge is, as supported by my vote, should we really rob from Peter to pay Paul, after, of course, diluting the tax by $1.4 billion in administration fees?